Loved You Always
by Moonseeker
Summary: Auron and Lulu meet one night on the cold mountain of Gagazet. Spoliers from pre-Yunalesca, and story is set pre-game.


Loved You Always  
  
By: Moonseeker  
  
Single Chapter Auron/Lulu Drama/Romance Fic  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy X in any way, shape or form. So I have an imagination, yay for me!!!  
  
Author Note: This is a re-release of my story, now revised and edited. Big thanks to dark sorceress and wewe for your positive reviews on the first version of this story. This most likely will be the final version, so I hope you will enjoy it, and tell me what you think. On with the show!!  
  
Getting up was the first step, but his body had forgotten how to move.  
  
She had slapped at him in her first form, and when he thought he could taste victory, revenge, she hit him with all she had. In his mind the images stood out vividly among memories of the dark past, images of that demon with her snakes, striking at his face, arms, legs. A victory scream had escaped her mouth, her voice triumphant. But he was not ready to give up, not ready to let go. Slowly grasping the huge broadsword that had fallen from his hand in the hellbiter attack, he rose to trembling feet. Trembling not from fear, but from the excitement of doing battle. Again the horrible serpents with poisonous breath were sent toward him. Miraculously, he dodged them; their mouths full of fangs striking the blood stained dirt underneath his feet.  
  
Dancing out of reach of the last one, things seemed to slow, then stop as he thought of his fallen friends whom he was battling for. Their visages whirled across his mind, their voices in his memory encouraging him to stop the cycle of death consuming Spira, consuming them all. Suddenly the ground started to shake under his feet, gently then violently. He lost his footing, tumbled to the cold ground, and lost his grip on his sword, the only friend he had left in this world.  
  
When he regained consciousness, that cold-hearted bitch was staring at him, her eyes full of some feeling he couldn't place. Her head tilted back in an evil laugh that shook him to the very core of his bones, like the sound of nails on a chalkboard. The large medusa head she had decided to take residence on laughed too, a hollow sound of lost souls trying to find their way in the farplane. Serpents on it hissed, then struck. Constricting him, binding him to her. Squeezing tighter and tighter each second. He counted the long seconds as they went by, guessing at how many he had left. One, two, three,.  
  
Surprisingly, three stretched into four then into five and beyond. Were the snakes loosening their grip on his battered body? Numb, he felt himself being lowered to the ground. His body tried to stand on weak legs sapped of strength, but instead they collapsed underneath him, forcing his body into a painful, twisted mass on the ground. His vision started to leave him, everything was turning dark. No, he couldn't give up just yet. He had almost won against her, against a summoner's, and Spira's fate. Fighting against the oncoming darkness proved to be futile, and it overwhelmed him, sending him into a state where he was not dead or alive, but just there. His friends' souls came to him, but he heard not a word of what the otherworldly voices, friendly or not, were telling him. Were they whispers of the past he shared with them? Of old times when they had run rampant through a town trying to catch the one of the three that had a nasty habit of getting drunk at the wrong times? Or, of support for his cause?  
  
Hours, he supposed, passed before he awoke. Awoke? Wasn't he dead? No, there was no way, dead or not, that he would allow his friends' deaths to be unavenged. His will kept him on the earth, for a purpose: To defeat Sin, once and for all. Getting up proved to be difficult, his entire body burned with the pain of a lost battle. Looking around once on unsteady feet and painful legs, he noticed he wasn't in the old blitzball arena any longer. He stood on Mt. Gagazet, looking down on the ruins of a thousand-year-old metropolis. Zanarkand; The word rippled through his mind, not content with leaving him in peace. So he was dead now, was he? Now he was invincible, unstoppable. Nothing could stand in his way on his journey to end Spira and it's peoples' suffering.  
  
Reaching between his shoulder blades he could feel the welcome hilt of his katana, a constant companion through thick and thin. Slowly, he drew the large blade out of its proper sheath on his back feeling the perfect balance of the somewhat large sword. Putting it on its customary place on his shoulder, he started down the mountain. He had promises to keep didn't he? One to the summoner to take his young daughter to the quiet island village of Besaid. The other to the man from the sacred city, Zanarkand, to take care of his son since he was such a crybaby, according to him anyway.  
  
The sun shone brightly, glinting off the snow into his eyes. Putting up a hand to shield them, he noticed one was scarred over, unable to open much less be used for vision. Careful fingers followed the long, already healed over scar down from above his right eye down to the bottom of his jaw. Battle scars were inevitable in this world of fiends, but anyone could see that more than a fiend had done this. Yunalesca, that unsent demoness, had left her mark on him forever. Was it her who had done the damage? Or her serpent servants from hell?  
  
Not really caring, he pulled out his sunglasses from a pocket in his red coat and slipped them on to the bridge of his nose. Trusted weapon on his shoulder, he continued down the mountain to what awaited him.  
  
Darkness fell quickly upon him, and he was unprepared for its coming. Almost stumbling blindly through the night, he stopped, catching his breath and sheathing the gigantic broad sword once more. A little creature was standing in front of him, eyeing him suspiciously. From his knowledge of Spira, he noticed that this was no fiend, but a cait sith doll, used for casting black magic by mages. A blink and it was gone. A moment later it reappeared, but this time sitting in its mistress's arms, a purr barely audible from its tiny animated body.  
  
A girl of no more than fifteen years of age looked at him. She had her long black hair up in a bun, then tied back into three or four braids with beads at the end, apparently her favorite style. A plain, long black dress was her outfit of choice, not adorned with even a touch of color or ribbon. Her eyes were a blood-like red, with a fierce determination held in them.  
  
They both stared for a moment, then both asked the question they had been wondering: "Who are you and what are you doing here alone?"  
  
Later, both sat by a roaring fire that was lit by the black mage's limited powers. He was thankful for the warmth, and the glow it brought. They both sat in silence for a long time, sometimes glancing at the other, mostly gazing into the fire. It was the girl who spoke first.  
  
"At first I didn't know who you were, but now that I see you in the light, I can tell you are one of High Summoner Braska's legendary guardians. Am I correct?"  
  
Her voice was quiet, with a deep note in it, but was nice to listen to. His face lifted from the fire to stare into hers for a moment. Then he replied.  
  
"I am. But may I ask what a young girl like you is doing on the mountain all alone? Or would that be prying too much?"  
  
"Young? I may be young in body," she replied, "But my mind has been grown up for a long time. I am here for personal reasons, not ones that I would be comfortable telling a complete stranger. I am called Lulu, and I am a black mage in training."  
  
Lulu, for that was her name, watched the legendary guardian with interest for a moment as he though of a reply. She spoke first.  
  
"You are Auron, correct?" A nod. "You may not know this, but when you came with the High Summoner to Besaid I was watching all of you. Something attracted me, I'm still not sure.," She stopped suddenly. "Why am I telling you this?" Lulu sighed and fell silent.  
  
Auron's gaze was fixed upon her; He felt an attraction too, but from what? He felt the blood rise in his face and was thankful he had shifted out of the firelight a moment before. Me?, he thought, With a fifteen year old girl? Jecht would laugh his ass off. Then I would be forced to hurt him. He continued to study her face noting all the details from the way her eyebrows curved over those beautiful crimson eyes, to the shape of her jaw, trying to fix it all in memory.  
  
"Do you ever wonder if age should be measured in mental maturity rather than years spent on this hell bound earth?" She asked softly out of the blue into the dark.  
  
It took him a moment to respond, but the words were not difficult to find.  
  
"Age. Should be measured in a person's ability to reason and think rationally. I believe that I was still a child until I saw my closest friends fall for another temporary defeat of Sin. That experience jaded me, I think. Allowed me to become an adult after many years of immaturity." His voice was deep and grim.  
  
"I believe so too. You aren't truly mature until a certain moment in your life that changes everything. Even now at fifteen I have already come across that event."  
  
They stayed silent for many a second, watching each other, the dying fire, or the night sky filled with stars. Lulu shivered slightly in the cold air, and Auron took notice. Why was she here all alone any way?  
  
"It would be best if we camped together this night. No one should be alone on this giant of a hill," Auron said, his voice almost feeling automatic as the words escaped his lips.  
  
"It would be best..," She murmured after him. Lulu dampened the already dying fire with a water spell, so as not to attract fiends as they slept. "Should one of us keep watch?" She asked into the darkness in the direction that she thought he was.  
  
"I'll take first watch."  
  
His voice startled her, for it was a whisper right beside her ear. Auron had snuck over beside her. Lulu, thankful for the warmth his body provided though the thin fabric of her ebony dress, didn't complain. Instead she leaned against his body, feeling him stiffen slightly, then relax. She settled her head into the dip of his shoulder, sighing slightly, feeling his arms wrapping around her waist lightly to steady her against him. They sat like that for a long while, neither needing to say anything, just wanting to savor the moment forever. Lulu broke the silence of the moment with yet another question.  
  
"Are you still a Yevonite, after all you've seen? After witnessing all the destruction brought by Sin? Do you still believe that Yevon guides and protects us even while sending Sin to punish us for deeds done by the peoples of more than a thousand years past?"  
  
Auron chose to stay silent once again, thinking of his past years as a warrior monk at the Bevelle Temple. Had he ever been a Yevonite? At the temple it seemed that they fed the teachings to people that would become followers because they had nothing else to hold on to. Sin had destroyed it all. Was there even a God in this world people could turn to for salvation?  
  
"There is no way I will be considered a Yevonite in the future. I may have been then, but the events of my life have changed me into an atheist. I feel there is no God for us now, no salvation."  
  
They both lapsed into silence once more. Auron stayed awake and watchful as Lulu succumbed to sleep. Her steady breathing alerted him to that fact. Sighing, Auron decided to let her sleep the night out. She was apparently exhausted from her journey on the mountain; He would take all nights watch.  
  
Silent darkness stared back at him, as he looked out at it, comforting but fierce at the same time. He sighed but did not move or shift, fearing to wake her from her dream filled slumber. He spent the night wondering about her, and about the questions she had asked him. Did he answer as he would have answered before the pilgrimage? No, that wasn't possible. After seeing Braska summon the Final Aeon, seeing Jecht as the Final Aeon, watching Sin writhe in pain from the fierce attack could anyone be the same as before?  
  
Day broke hours later; a splash of the warm sun's glow washing over the snow covered mountain. Auron watched the sunrise in silence, wondering who was watching it at the same time. People who wouldn't die today because Sin was vanquished once more. The process of choosing one, more like two, over many was the method of choice for Spira. Was there no other way?  
  
Lulu shifted in his arms, and opened her red eyes, blinking sleepily at the world. They slowly stood up, covering the ashes of the fire with the abundance of snow nearby. She broke their morning silence.  
  
"Well, this is good-bye, I guess. I'm heading over the mountain."  
  
"Why? What do you need to go to that ruin for?"  
  
"I- I just can't say. I just need to see it. That's all. Good luck in your travels, Sir Auron," she replied with a slight bow. Lulu gathered her cait doll from where it was sitting against a rock. The black and white feline stretched in her arms, and even gave a little yawn; apparently she was talented at animating the dolls.  
  
"Good luck," Auron replied, and watched as she started up the mountain once more. There was no doubt in his mind that she would return home safely. Even only partly trained he could tell she was a force to be reckoned with.  
  
"Oh, one last thing!" she called stopping and turning around to face him.  
  
"Hmmm?"  
  
"I love you," she said abruptly, and he could swear he saw a solitary tear slide down her face. Then she turned and continued up the mountain, disappearing from Auron's vision completely. Would they ever cross paths again? It wouldn't matter, he thought, There is no way I can have a relationship now. I'm dead.  
  
Looking up at the sun for a moment, he then drew his sword putting it on his shoulder once again. Auron traveled down the mountain then, going to fulfill promises he made to friends on their deathbeds, disappearing from sight. What did fate have in store for him? He didn't know, but he was ready for anything.  
  
Author Note: This is my first fic I've posted up on the 'net, so please be kind. I know this story is a little weird, okay, really weird, but hopefully some of you will like it. Can't say I'm very good at romance, but I gave it my best shot. Review and constructive criticism please? I'm writing another fic right now. If this one gets good reviews, perhaps I will post that one up too. Hmmmmm.. 


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